Backpaking lifestyle
longest at 17 years (Table 1). Variations within the participants’ travel experiences are
discussed in the next section.
In both India and Thailand, I entered the field again as a ‘traveller’ and for the first time
as a researcher. Drawing on my travel experiences, I blended back into backpacker culture by
dressing in somewhat worn casual attire, a practical style common among backpackers in
South Asia (Hottola, 2008), socialising with them and moving through daily practices in the
5
same networks of accommodation and eating facilities (see also Davidson, 2005; Sørensen,
2003). Lugosi (2006) notes that communicating one’s research identity to prospective
participants is typically abrupt or incremental, lying between overt and covert. Through many
annaabi.ee 
